Are my staff taking me for a ride, or just trying for work/life balance?

I have been working for a medium-sized charity for 18 months. I love the work, but staff management issues and the organisational culture make me want to leave. I manage a small team. Almost every week at least one of them is off sick (average eight days per annum each), late, at a medical appointment or taking time off without notice. Now they know I am on their case there is some improvement, but certainly no step change. When I speak to them about it, their reactions range from incomprehension to uncontrolled weeping.

I know they swing the lead sometimes, and I do feel frustrated by their unreliability, but I also have some sympathy. Their jobs are low paid, everyone is ill sometimes, and they all have personal issues (eg, single motherhood). They see me as the henchman of an authoritarian regime.

The organisation is autocratic and hierarchical. The senior management sees my team as skivers; I am constantly under pressure to "sort them out". However, I find the rules I enforce inflexible to the point where it becomes bizarre. Staff are not allowed to work flexitime. People who arrive even five minutes after 9am are recorded in a register. Perhaps it is not surprising that the staff rebel.

It is all wearing me down. I can no longer judge what is reasonable. Are my staff just trying to balance their work and life, or are they taking me and the charity for a ride?

Jeremy says

My first thought centres on the other teams in your organisation: do their leaders face the same difficulties and incur the same senior management displeasure? If not, there may be useful lessons for you. It's evidence of wisdom, not weakness, to borrow sensible ideas from other people doing the same sort of job.

Your own attitude is ambivalent. You're critical of your organisation for being too authoritarian and, at the same time, find yourself frustrated by your team's unreliability. As a result, you've lost confidence in your own judgment: you're no longer able to distinguish between who's right and who's wrong. That's entirely understandable – but, until you get some confidence back, I'm afraid you'll continue to flounder.

My own reading of the situation is that you're right to be critical both of your company's management style and of your team's imperfect sense of personal responsibility. It's not an either-or decision – but you do need to exercise your authority.

Go to your senior management with a thought-through plan. Tell them their inflexibility is counterproductive – that responsible individuals in your team find the regime so unnecessarily inhuman and restrictive they rebel against it. Ask for management agreement for you to run a six-month experiment: in return for specified relaxations in the area of timekeeping and flexi-working, you will ensure that your team's performance and punctuality improve in certain measurable respects.

If that request is granted, go to your team with this clear proposition. Tell them of the greater latitude you've negotiated on their behalf. Tell them of your personal guarantee to management and the time scale. And tell them that it's now up to them.

The next six months will be a testing time for you. But it should work. It would be a great shame if you felt you had to leave a job you love.

Readers say

• From the tone of your question it sounds like you are more on the side of your staff than your managers. Perhaps this is because you are generally happy with their work and don't mind if they take time off for personal reasons because the atmosphere of the office and the standard of work is good. If that is the case, stick up for them. Everyone is so scared of employers at the moment – don't join the Victorian revival of 16-hour working days for half a shilling and a clip round the ear. If your team is good, support them and the work they do. RuthArcher

I'm tempted to take redundancy, but where else could I go at 51?

I'm a single, 51-year-old woman. I have a degree and IT skills, but have spent all my working life in low-paid clerical jobs, mainly for the same company. The company is now restructuring, and there is the possibility of voluntary redundancy for one staff member in my department. I am younger than my colleagues, but have longer service.

If I volunteer, what chances do I stand of getting alternative employment, given that the northern town where I live has a severely depressed economy and few, or no, office jobs since public sector vacancies disappeared? I am not in a position to move, as I have an elderly parent living with me who needs support. I have not been particularly happy where I am for years, and part of me sees this as an opportunity to try, at least, to start again elsewhere. But is it, as I suspect, too late? On the plus side, I am very flexible and don't mind taking low-paid, or part-time, work.

I may not have the privilege of choice, but if I do, should I stay or go? The other point to consider is that if I do stay, my working pattern will change and will be significantly less congenial. I fear my line manager will not be sympathetic towards my need for time off for family reasons. This hasn't arisen previously because I work flexible hours, but this will no longer be an option.

Jeremy says

The more I study your letter, the more convinced I become that, if you do have the privilege of choice, then you should take redundancy. I know it's a scary thought – but I have quite a strong sense that if your confidence level was just a little bit higher, you'd hardly hesitate. You haven't been happy in this job for some years, and it's not going to get better. It's going to become even less congenial and you'll lose the flexibility you need.

So try to see yourself as you are: an educated woman, with practised IT skills, a long record of continual service and an open-mindedness about how you work. There may not be many clerical jobs going in your home town but there absolutely must be some: and if not immediately, then soon.

It's not too late to make another start. Somewhere out there, there's a business that would be very happy to find you. And while I know your needs are relatively modest, please don't set your sights too low. I suspect you've been underrating yourself for rather too long.

Use any contacts you have: you've got more to offer than you may think.

Readers say

• Don't underestimate your employability, even in a depressed market. Professional, well-executed clerical work is often the backbone of many a small company, and someone experienced, reliable and intelligent would be good news for a owner- managed business. So many people feel this type of work is beneath them, but I assure you the demand is there.

My advice would be to remain in your current job but start to identify possible employers and make contact with them. You might be aware that you have legal rights (and protection against discrimination) to time off for your caring responsibilities, though, in fact, most small businesses are flexible and understanding about such matters. ExBrightonBelle

• Fifty-one isn't too old to get another job, but do some research before you apply for redundancy. Find out about vacancies in your area. Find out whether flexible working is definitely not an option with your present employer after the restructure. And find out, too, whether there might be opportunities to move to a new role within your current workplace.

Also explore what would make you happy workwise. It might be a complete change of direction. If you're willing to move beyond your comfort zone, there are always ways of making money, even in a recession. annabelsmiles

For Jeremy Bullmore's advice on a work issue, send a brief email to dear.jeremy@theguardian.com. Please note that he is unable to answer questions of a legal nature or reply personally.

Read next week's problems on the Money blog from Monday and post your advice – we'll run the best of it alongside Jeremy's in next Saturday's column.